Donna Inez Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Translucent shreddings of paper dolls
Falling through her auburn locks
In winter’s night she stands
Shivering in a streetlamp’s glow.
Teardrops freeze upon pale, peach cheeks
Crystals of her inner soul
To have but one to taste and share
Even the smallest part of her;
To touch her cheek as the tears now do
And hold her head against my chest
Her breath hot upon it.

To run my fingers through her hair
And smell the scent,
Like daisies after morning dew
Upon mountain valleys
Where snowmelts run
Frigid cold
And the sun burns it’s grinning life
Where aspens sparkle in the breeze,
Gentle whispers of the wind
Their trunks like her body,
Smooth and slender,
Creamy white skins;
To touch them is to touch her;
To smell the scent of the breeze is to inhale her.

Her lips are red,
Rose petals brushing
Butterfly wings
Parted softly as if to fly;
Her breath, the wind off Caribbean seas,
Salt and sand whipping against my face,
Seeping deep inside my lungs;
Her whispers,
The waves
Breaking against the beach,
Waters seeping between my toes,
Shaping the world with a sculptor’s graces,
Molding it in a lover’s caress.

She seems so sad,
As if a love was lost,
Like a child shadowed by the night,
Her face hooded by the moonless sky

Her eyes look up
As if she hears me whispering her name.
She sees me now,
Standing on a shadowed hill.
I can hear her gasp,
Her body shaking more from shock of me than the wind.
For a moment we share each other,
Lost in the bottomless wells of blue and brown
And then she walks into the night
And I do not follow.